Books, Reviews, Tags and Musings

Falling Back In Love With The Library

This is my 200th blog post! So, I thought I would celebrate something that no book lover (or human being for that matter) should live without. Libraries.

I recently read a book called Public Libraries by Ali Smith. It’s a short story collection with small prologues before each story with somebody speaking about their experiences and connections with public libraries and it got me thinking just how special my memories are of my local library.

I have lived in the same town my entire life and have therefore visited the same library my entire life. The library played a big part in my childhood, I would do Summer challenges and get medals for reading books, I did my work experience there and I would even spend my lunch times exploring the shelves of my school library.

While my library is small and has more computers than it does books (not quite, but almost) it has always brought me so much joy, the walls bring comfort and familiarity.

I love how I can pick up books and take them away with no guilty feeling about spending too much money. I love that I actually read the book in the same month of bringing it home because I only have three weeks before returning it. And I love that when I return it, somebody else is going to pick it up from the same shelf and read the same story I did.

I love that libraries make books of entertainment or knowledge or both available to everyone. I love that it means you don’t have to be wealthy to enjoy reading. I feel like this is something I forgot for a little while.

When I first joined the online book community over on booktube I only had three small shelves of books because I would just borrow them from the library. It was very rare I would buy one.

But when I started watching booktube I became obsessed with having a big collection of books like you see in the background of the videos. I needed wanted every book in a series with matching covers before even starting it. I would buy a book without even knowing the description of it just because I saw one person holding it in a video.

Now I have lost all need of owning a copy of a book. I have no problem with only having three weeks to read it because it means I can’t let it sit on my shelf for a year collecting dust. I love that I now allow myself to read whatever whenever because I don’t need to worry about how much moneys in the bank. Plus, the whole saving my money thing is really satisfying.

How do you feel about libraries? Was it a big part of your childhood? Do you still use yours even though you can afford to buy them? Let me know!

Thanks for reading

Jess X

P.S. Thanks to everyone who answered my feedback survey! I’ve deleted the post now because I wanted my 200th post to be special but here’s a link: ‘Reads and Dreams Feedback Survey.‘ It’s just so I know what I’m doing right and what I need to improve on.

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6 thoughts on “Falling Back In Love With The Library”

Yes! Libraries were a HUGE part of my childhood and I fell back in love with them a couple of years ago when I graduated from college. I’d been using my online library for a while, but all the books I wanted to read had huge wait times on them. Then I finally visited my local library and saw dozens of books that I wanted to read just sitting on the shelf! It was a huge eyeopener for me and I’ve definitely started to take advantage of the library again. Great post!

What a great post! I’m a big fan of and user of libraries. I definitely had a library card from a young age and took full advantage of the library to borrow books to feed my reading addiction. Now I live in a big city with a massive library system and I love having all of these titles at my disposal. The only downside is sometimes having to wait for a book to come in.

I’m actually a librarian (not a fun public one, I work in a corporate library), so libraries are really important to me!

My fellow book blogger and friend Rachel lives in a small town with 1 library branch and I remember telling her about the number of holds on The Cursed Child shortly after it came out and more people had holds on this book than lived in her town! It’s been really interesting comparing notes on how different our local libraries are! I’m definitely spoiled for choice.

I loved my hometown library summer reading challenges – I lived for them when I was a kid and had so much fun earning stickers and prizes for the amount of – I think progress was measured in pages – read. While I love building my personal library (and yes, often splurging), I still rely heavily on my public library for my reading materials. I like putting books on hold, requesting them from other branches, and physically walking into the building to be around other book lovers and community members. I like browsing the particular displays, like those for Women’s History Month, short story month, etc., and being able to choose from hundreds of titles. Being a library patron really takes reading and book-loving to a new level, I think. 🙂